


Holding a Butterfly Knife with Bandaged Fingers

by bimmyshrug



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Ableist Language, Abusive Relationships, Alpha Patrick Hockstetter, Alpha Richie Tozier, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Animal Death, Animal Harm, Anxiety Attacks, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Biting, Blood and Gore, Bottom Stanley Uris, Breeding, Bullying, Chasing, Coercion, Consent Issues, Crazy Patrick Hockstetter, Creepy Patrick Hockstetter, Daddy Kink, Dark Richie Tozier, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death Threats, Despair, Dissociation, Dominant Richie Tozier, Dominant Top Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Extremely Dubious Consent, Fear, Forced Bonding, Forced Breeding, Forced Feminization, Forest Sex, Forests, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Heavy Angst, Homophobic Language, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jealousy, Knifeplay, Knives, Knotting, M/M, Manipulation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Name-Calling, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Obsessive Behavior, Omega Eddie Kaspbrak, Omega Stanley Uris, Outdoor Sex, Patrick Hockstetter is His Own Warning, Possessive Behavior, Possibly Unrequited Love, Power Imbalance, Pregnancy Kink, Public Sex, Richie Tozier Being an Asshole, Semi-Public Sex, Stozier, Threats of Violence, Top Richie Tozier, Transphobia, Unsafe Sex, Violent Sex, Voyeurism, kaspstetter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimmyshrug/pseuds/bimmyshrug
Summary: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT-Eddie isn’t sure why he’s not happy for them, but he isn’t. He hates it. He hates seeing them together, and seeing them hold hands and kiss in the hallways between classes. He hates the way Stan blushes and gets embarrassed when Richie wraps his arm around his waist while he walks him to class.He especially hates the way they talk about each other when the other isn’t around. Hearing them refer to each other as “mine.” “My alpha,” “my omega.” It makes Eddie feel sick.-He can’t tell at first who it is, just that they’re turned away, hunched over on the ground doing- doing something. And he knows he should try to hide because whoever it is hasn’t noticed him yet, but he gets distracted watching as they pick something up in their hands, and then they turn slightly to their left, and Eddie realizes that it’s Patrick Hockstetter.And that alone should be enough to send him booking it as quickly as possible in the opposite direction, but he can’t stop watching.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Patrick Hockstetter/Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 14
Kudos: 91





	Holding a Butterfly Knife with Bandaged Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> [come freak the fuck out on me for writing this on tumblr!](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)  
> um... ha ha ha so i know i've been joking about "oh em gee haha bimmyshrug is over party haha lol" but this might actually be the fic that gets me yeeted out of fandom once and for all so hope you motherfuckers enjoy it
> 
> /////TW CONTAIN SPOILERS! PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BELOW IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE TRIGGERED BY THIS!!!! TAKE THE TAGS VERY LITERALLY AND VERY SERIOUSLY!!!!/////////////////////////////
> 
> i'm just gonna bullet point the stuff that i couldn't tag:  
> \- richie is also a dick in this. he's mean and behaves poorly to stan, and coerces/manipulates him  
> \- patrick threatens bodily harm on eddie multiple times to get him to comply, including threatening to mutilate his genitals  
> \- THERE IS NO DUBCON BETWEEN PATRICK AND EDDIE. patrick rapes eddie, violently. point blank. there's no misinterpreting there, it is rape through and through  
> \- eddie is in heat when patrick rapes him and complies for that reason  
> \- eddie dissociates multiple times  
> \- patrick knots eddie unprotected and mentions getting him pregnant, but i do not specify in the story if eddie gets pregnant or not, so do with that what you will  
> \- patrick very violently tortures a fish to death  
> \- the voyeurism is eddie watching stan and richie  
> \- when richie is fucking stan, stan asks richie explicitly not to knot him and richie does anyway  
> \- there is no resolution to this story. there is no happy ending. it ends very badly for eddie
> 
> let me know if i missed anything  
> //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> 
> okay well if you're still here, hope you enjoy! :^)

Being a beta is easy. It’s what most people probably wish for, Eddie figures. Being a beta means you don’t have to deal with heats, or ruts, or social injustices born from inherent second gender power imbalances. You just exist, and you find another beta to be with, and you move on. There’s no messiness involving mating bonds or the territorial behavior that often plagues bonded alpha/omega pairs. It’s easy.

And sure, maybe you don’t get to have that feeling that alphas and omegas describe, where you need the other person so badly that you’ll feel like you’ll die without them- that you’d kill to be with them. Like nothing else in the world matters but being together.

But that sounds scary anyway, and that’s why Eddie is glad he’s a beta.

He’s so, so glad he’s a beta, and so is his mom. And she reminds him that he’ll stay that way every time another one of his friends or a kid at school presents. “Not my baby,” she’ll say. Because he wouldn’t be an alpha, and she knows that, and Eddie knows, too. It’s pretty obvious just from looking at him that he couldn’t ever be an alpha.

So beta it is. And when the other kids in their class start to present, Eddie might feel a little… not envious. That isn’t the right word. Curious, maybe.

Curious about what it must feel like to have a heat. It’s probably scary, he figures. It probably feels really, really scary and overwhelming.

Bill is the first in their friend group to present, which Eddie figures is right. That’s how it should be. Everyone already knew he’d be an alpha, since he shot right up and broadened out as soon as they got out of middle school.

And it’s stupid, probably, but Eddie didn’t expect Richie to be an alpha too, even though he should have. Even though everyone else did. So it slaps him right in the face when a few months after Bill presents, Richie misses a few days of school, only to come back and brag all day about how he popped his knot, and how he always knew he was going to, and that he can’t wait to see who in their class ends up being an omega.

Eddie tries to ignore most of this conversation, since he can’t relate, anyway. And because listening to this is making him upset, and he isn’t sure why, and he’d rather just ignore it.

But then Richie nudges his foot under the lunch table to get his attention, and says in a voice that Eddie swears sounds deeper and richer and more _adult_ than it did a few days ago, “What about you, Eds? Think you’ll ever get wet between the legs?”

“Uh- um, no. Nobody in my family has ever been an omega, or an alpha, for that matter. So… it’s statistically virtually impossible for me to end up being an omega. And besides, most omegas are girls, anyway.”

“Ah shucks, guess my plans to whisk you away and make you my little housebunny will have to die before they even began,” he sighs dramatically, and Eddie flushes and feels embarrassed and _angry_ as he sneers at Richie from across the table.

“Yeah, well, lucky me, huh? God help the poor omega who ends up trapped with _you_ for the rest of their life.”

But he didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Because a few months after that, Stan shocked everyone by presenting, too. And out of all of them, Stan was the one that everyone seemed nearly positive would end up being a beta. But low and behold, a few weeks before his fifteenth birthday, he misses a few days of school before coming back like he’s walking into his own funeral.

Which maybe he is, because Patrick and Henry and them all swarm him as soon as he walks in the door, like they could smell him from outside, which maybe they could. Maybe they could smell fresh meat in the air all morning, and that’s why their little pack gathered around the door, waiting for Stan to shuffle into the building as inconspicuously as possible.

“Holy shit!” Henry yells the moment Stan walks in the door, calling the entire hallway’s attention to them. “Turns out the faggot is a bitch too after all, huh?”

“Honestly, I’m surprised,” Patrick adds. “Always figured Kaspbrak would end up being your pack’s token bitch boy.”

Eddie isn’t sure what to do and he freezes and panics, which is useless, but he doesn’t know what to _do_. He doesn’t know how to help Stan, because- because frankly, Henry and Patrick scare him even more now that they’ve got the bravado of alpha-status fueling their antics.

Nobody else seems sure what to do either, because the rest of the losers just stand there as well, watching as Stan turns his nose up at Henry, despite clenching and unclenching his fists anxiously at his sides.

He doesn’t reply, and Henry laughs, which makes Eddie feel sick to his stomach.

“You know, I’ve always thought you were pretty, Uris,” Patrick says next, and that seems to break Stan’s poker face, because he gears up to run away. But Patrick notices and grabs him by the bicep, and Eddie starts to wonder where the fuck the teachers are and why the fuck nobody is doing anything.

“And I’m sure all you want to do is pop that little cherry, huh? Bet it’s all you think about, isn’t it?”

Eddie is about to ask the others what the fuck they should do when Richie breaks off from the group and storms right up to them.

“Fuck off, Patrick.”

“Mind your own fucking business, Tozier,” Henry barks back at him, and Eddie is starting to worry that they’re going to get into a fight. “This has nothing to do with you, so fuck off. Don’t think you’re a big man now just because you popped your knot.”

“Besides, he wants it, Tozier. Look at him; he’s getting all worked up,” Patrick argues, pulling Stan closer to him by the waist. Stan cringes when Patrick leans in closer to his face before speaking again. “You just need an alpha to take care of you, don’t you, baby? You want me to take care of you when you get all messy between your legs?”

Eddie startles when Richie pushes Patrick away from Stan, but he gasps out loud when Richie pulls Stan into a kiss. Stan seems surprised, too, based on how wide his eyes are when Richie first starts moving his lips against Stan’s.

Eddie watches in breathless horror as Richie separates their mouths and pulls Stan closer to him without much grace or care at all, sliding his hand down to Stan’s wrist and gripping it tightly before tugging him down into his chest.

“He already has one, so stay the fuck away from him, Patrick.”

Everyone in the hallway- seemingly in the whole school- is watching this happen, and Eddie starts to feel like he’s going to have a panic attack. Because Richie just claimed Stan in front of everybody. He might as well have given Stan a fucking mate mark, for fuck’s sake. Might as well have pulled his fucking pants down and pissed on him.

And everybody knows by the end of the school day, like they’re getting fucking married or something. Everyone knows that Uris and Tozier got together, and that becomes the inescapable reality of every day at school from that point on.

At first Eddie was hoping that it was just an act, and they were pretending to date so that Henry and Patrick would leave Stan alone. But it becomes apparent very, very quickly that Richie is being sincere when he kisses Stan goodbye when they’re all walking home from school, and there’s nobody else around to put on a show for.

Eddie isn’t sure why he’s not happy for them, but he isn’t. He hates it. He hates seeing them together, and seeing them hold hands and kiss in the hallways between classes. He hates the way Stan blushes and gets embarrassed when Richie wraps his arm around his waist while he walks him to class.

He especially hates the way they talk about each other when the other isn’t around. Hearing them refer to each other as “mine.” “My alpha,” “my omega.” It makes Eddie feel sick.

The worst is how handsy Richie is with him when they’re hanging out in the clubhouse, or at Bill’s, or wherever else, and he’ll drag Stan to sit in his lap, or keep his arms locked around Stan’s waist like the omega might float off if he lets go, or scent him while they’re all there in the room, like it isn’t a deeply intimate thing to do in front of other people, even if they’re all friends.

Eddie starts to resent Stan, and at first he thinks that maybe it’s because he’s angry that so much of Richie’s time becomes occupied with Stan after they get together, but he realizes over time that that isn’t the case at all.

Because once the rest of their friends present, and the rest of their class presents, and Eddie never presents, and Stan and Richie’s relationship doesn’t fall apart after a few months like Eddie selfishly hoped it would, he realizes that he’s jealous.

And he might think that he’s just jealous of their relationship, but he realizes that it goes deeper than that when he finds himself wondering what it must be like to be an omega in more than just an abstract way- when he’s in bed at night and wondering what Stan must feel when Richie knots him, and if it hurts, and if he ever gets worried that Richie is going to get him pregnant.

And then he starts fantasizing about what it might be like to be in Stan’s position- to feel that needy ache so deep inside of him, and to have Richie take that ache away.

He gets it mostly under control, though, and resolves to keep his jealousy and his envy to himself and let Richie and Stan be happy. Until their senior year comes around, and everyone starts asking if they’re going to mate, which Eddie could maybe handle if Richie weren’t so quick to assure everyone that of course they’ll be mating.

He talks about it all the fucking time, like it’s the only thing he ever looks forward to anymore. He loves to tell everyone who will listen all about how he’s going to take Stan on a weekend trip for his 18th birthday to celebrate the occasion of them finally getting to legally belong to each other.

Eddie tries to be supportive as he has for the past few years, but this feels like it’s really the end. Like this is the moment that will officially mark the end of his stupid, childish hope that Richie might change his mind and decide that he wants to be with a beta who he can’t even properly mate with instead of Stan, who is the ideal omega.

Fucking stupid.

By the time Stan’s birthday weekend comes around, Eddie is in such misery that he doesn’t even want to hear about it anymore. He finds every excuse and every reason he can to leave when conversation turns to Richie’s plan to make Stan belong to him, officially, once and for all. Forever.

But he can’t exactly run away from the table as they’re all eating lunch together when he’s trapped sitting next to Bill and across from Richie, so he has to look right at him while he talks about how excited he is for Stan’s birthday, and how his parents gave their blessing in the form of paying for their fucking hotel room.

“It’s, like, nice, too. Like really nice. Right on the ocean and everything. It’s obviously too cold to go swimming, but I figure we’ll probably spend most of our time in the room, so it’ll be cool to have something nice to look at.”

“Ouch,” Stan jokes and elbows Richie in the ribs, and Richie reaches over to pull Stan into a hug, grabbing his chin with his fingers to drag Stan’s lips to his own, kissing him deeply (much too deeply for polite company, Eddie thinks) before pulling away to pepper kisses across his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

“I meant during food and water breaks, of course. Don’t worry, I’ll be staring lovingly at the back of your head for most of the weekend while I put your birth control to work,” he clarifies, running his thumb across Stan’s cheek before kissing him on the forehead.

“You know, you could try being a _little_ romantic about this. I don’t think it’d kill you,” he grumbles, and Richie mocks offense, clutching dramatically at his chest.

“I’m being romantic as fuck! I have so much shit planned, you have no idea.”

“Taking me to get pizza and asking for a hand job in the parking lot doesn’t count as romantic.”

Richie rolls his eyes, ruffling Stan’s hair before wrapping his arm around his shoulders. “That was one time, and in my defense, I forgot it was our anniversary.”

“I don’t think that works in your defense, Richie.”

“Are you guys coming to school on Monday? Or are you taking a few days off to spend time together as a newly mated couple?” Bill asks conversationally, and Eddie is tempted to stab him in the back of his hand with his fork.

“Nah, I have a calc test on Monday, so I have to be here,” Richie sighs, before snapping his fingers and turning his attention onto Eddie, who is already annoyed before Richie even opens his mouth to speak again. “Speaking of, you’re still gonna let me borrow your homework before 5th period, right?”

“If by ‘borrow,’ you mean ‘copy,’ then yes, but you better give me a fucking ride home after school,” Eddie barks back, and it sounds much more hostile than he means for it to.

“Of course, Eddie baby; anything for you,” Richie coos at him before letting go of Stan’s shoulders to lean across the table, reaching out to pinch both of Eddie’s cheeks.

“Fuck off, asshole,” Eddie snaps at him, swatting Richie’s hands away more aggressively than he normally does. But Richie doesn’t seem to notice before he sits back down in his seat, resting his chin in his palm as he bats his eyelashes at Eddie from across the table.

“I can’t help it, you’re just so cute when you’re mad. Like a gwumpy little kitten; I just want to eat you up.”

“I don’t think most people want to eat kittens,” Stan grumbles quietly, and Eddie sort of wants to stab him with his fork, too.

“Then it’s a good thing that I’m actually the big bad wolf,” Richie says with a wink, but the wink is directed at Eddie, and Eddie isn’t sure how he’s supposed to take that.

So instead of thinking about it too much, he reaches under the table to rifle through his backpack for his homework to hand it to Richie. “Don’t fucking lose it or get anything on it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, my liege.”

“You’re so fucking annoying, you know that?” Eddie snaps before he can keep it contained, but Richie just laughs. “Might want to reign it in before this weekend in case Stan decides he doesn’t actually want to be stuck with you forever.”

“That’s the great thing about being an alpha, Eddie baby. I can just chase him down if he tries to run away,” Richie jokes, and Eddie feels like it’s in poor taste, and Stan must too, because he shoots a sincerely offended glance at Richie.

Richie notices and throws his hands up defensively and looks to Mike and Bill for backup, but they’re giving him disapproving looks as well. “I’m just kidding, Jesus Christ. I’m not that kinda guy.”

“Yeah, well, lots of alphas are,” Stan argues, and Richie rolls his eyes at him again.

“Lucky for you that you landed one of the good ones then, huh?”

“Yeah, lucky me.”

Richie snatches Eddie’s homework off of the table before standing, grabbing his and Stan’s backpacks from the ground. “C’mon, I want to get to Spanish before all the seats in the back are taken.”

And even though he’s still eating his sandwich, Stan stands up from the table and follows Richie into the hallway, and Eddie stares after them, wishing he could create a sinkhole with his mind to swallow up the entire school with all of them inside.

Richie makes good on their agreement and waits for Eddie after school to give him a ride, but Eddie regrets asking when he realizes that Stan doesn’t have debate today, and Richie is driving him home, too.

So the two of them are standing by Eddie’s locker and making eyes at each other when he goes to pack up after last period, and he wants to just leave and say he forgot that he had asked Richie for a ride in the first place.

But Stan sees him approaching them before he can make a break for it, so he’s forced to put on a smile and pretend that it doesn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin when Richie slides his hand into Stan’s back pocket as they’re walking to his car.

It’s worse once they get there, because Richie makes a big fuss about putting Stan’s backpack in the back for him, and warming up the car as quickly as possible because Stan mentions being cold, and asking him what he wants to listen to on the radio.

Eddie stays quiet, which doesn’t seem to matter, because they’re too busy talking about their weekend plans, anyway. How long the drive will be, and what time they’re going to come back on Sunday evening, and whatever the fuck else they say after Eddie is able to effectively tune them out.

He occupies himself with staring out the window, watching as they pass houses and trees and other students walking home from school. Eddie is content to keep his brain turned off and wait for Richie to pull into his driveway, but then the sound of a car suddenly accelerating snaps him out of his trance, and he snaps his head back to see Belch Huggins’ car approaching them at a dangerous pace from behind.

Richie starts speeding up, and Stan shoots a look over at him, and Richie throws a hand up into the air.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do? Let them hit us?!”

“Don’t play along with their games. Just ignore them and they’ll leave us alone.”

“With all do respect, babe, ignoring them doesn’t seem to have worked for the past ten years,” Richie argues, before speeding up again to put more distance between them.

Eddie watches anxiously as Belch speeds up as well, getting so close to the rear bumper of Richie’s car that Eddie can make out the pimples on Henry’s face as he motions for Belch to go faster, even though there’s nowhere else for them to go without ramming into the back of Richie’s car.

Still, Eddie can hear as Belch lays on the gas again, and his heart leaps into his throat as he braces for impact.

But he opens his eyes when he hears them speeding past instead, racing up the wrong side of the road.

“Fucking idiots,” Stan mumbles as they zoom past, and Eddie’s sense of relief lasts barely a millisecond before Richie starts speeding up to catch up to them.

“What the fuck are you doing, Richie?!” Stan nearly screams a moment later, and Eddie wants to echo his concerns, but he’s starting to get a sick feeling in his stomach, and he can’t do much more than suck in tiny gasps over and over again as Richie matches their speed until their cars are side by side on the road.

“Richie!” Stan tries one more time, and Richie flashes him a look that makes Eddie’s stomach sink into his shoes, and must makes Stan’s, too, since he cowers down into his seat.

_“Shut the fuck up, Stanley.”_

Eddie watches in horror as Richie continues to match their pace, even as Patrick starts to lean out of the passenger side window.

He tosses a full, unopened can of beer at the side of Richie’s car, and it explodes with a deafening thud before spraying foam up the side of the car door to the window and falling into the road.

Eddie glances back to watch as it lands on the pavement, and he finally finds his voice.

“Rich- Richie stop!” he screeches as Henry tosses another can at the car, though this one misses, just barely.

Stan isn’t saying anything anymore, and Eddie wishes he would, for fuck’s sake.

“Eddie, shut the fuck up,” Richie snaps at him, and Eddie feels hot rage bubble up in his throat.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to get us fucking killed?”

Eddie whips his head around as another can comes thudding into the side of Richie’s car, and his panic reaches a shrieking boiling point when Stan still doesn’t say anything and continues to sit meekly in the passenger seat, staring ahead with wide, blank eyes.

 _“Richie!”_ Eddie screams at the top of his lungs, at which point Richie slams on the brakes, veering his car off of the road and onto the shoulder as he whips around in his seat to look at Eddie.

Eddie watches as Belch’s car zips past them, and he locks eyes with Patrick as he tosses another can at Richie’s car that bounces off of the hood, before blowing Eddie a kiss.

“Shut the fuck up, Eddie. I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to, but-”

“Who the fuck do _you_ think you’re talking to?! I didn’t ask for a ride home so I could die in a fucking car crash because you want to have a fucking knothead pissing contest!”

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, and if you don’t want to be around for it, then you can walk your ass home.”

“You’re fucking insane. You’ve lost your goddamn mind.”

“If you ever, _ever_ make me look like a bitch like that again, you’re going to _fucking regret it_ ,” Richie nearly growls at him, and Eddie wants to keep arguing and wants to keep being angry, but he can’t bring himself to speak another word.

He’s never heard Richie sound like that, and he just looks so- so _furious,_ and Eddie is starting to understand why Stan has been silent this entire time. So he just nods, and Richie peels off onto the road again, and the rest of the ride to Eddie’s house is quiet.

He rushes to gather his things once they get there, because he senses that an argument is brewing between Stan and Richie as well, and Eddie wants to be far, far away when it finally comes to a head.

“Uh- I’ll- I’ll see you guys on Monday?”

“Yeah.”

“Have- um- have a nice weekend. I hope you have a good birthday, Stan,” Eddie adds softly, and Stan finally glances at him to flash him a meek little smile.

“Thanks, Eddie. See you Monday.”

“Um, see you. Drive- drive safe.”

Eddie tries very, very hard not to think about what happened, or about Stan and Richie at all for the rest of the weekend, but he can’t help it. He can’t stop thinking about how willing Richie was to put them all in danger, and for what? To prove a point to a bunch of fucking assholes?

And the way he spoke to Eddie, and to Stan. Does he talk to Stan like that often when they’re alone? Eddie has never heard Richie talk to Stan that way before.

Why did Stan just say nothing? Worse, why did it seem like Stan sort of just… shut down mentally?

Eddie’s heard of that happening, sometimes. That alphas can sort of just… make their omegas do things, if they want to. Just by saying it.

But he thought it only worked for mated pairs, which Stan and Richie aren’t- at least not yet. And besides, Eddie didn’t think Richie would do something like that.

Maybe he just misunderstood the situation. He’s not an alpha or an omega, so he probably just doesn’t get it. Still, when Eddie thinks about the way Richie spoke to him over the course of the rest of the weekend, it sends a flurry of anxiety up his spine that makes his skin feel loose over his bones.

Which is strange, because he also thinks about it while he’s lying in his bed with his hand in his underwear on Saturday night, wondering if Richie has mated Stan yet, and if they’re having sex right now, and if that’s the way Richie sounds when he’s fucking Stan and growling into his ear from behind.

_Shut the fuck up._

_You’re going to fucking regret it._

And the confusing, shivery, nervous feeling is still sitting all over his skin when he comes into his hand while he thinks about what it must feel like to get bitten so hard that it draws blood, and how Stan is lucky that Richie has such straight teeth.

Shockingly, he isn’t as miserable as he thought he’d be when he walks into school on Monday morning. He was considering playing sick to his mom (he _has_ had a headache all weekend, and he woke up feeling a bit nauseous) but he actually thinks this is probably a good thing. A final push to let this stupid little fantasy of his go, where some day he might be able to be with Richie like Stan gets to be forever now.

He’s already started his grieving process and resolved to just avoid talking to them both as much as possible all day, so when he walks into the school to see the both of them plus the rest of their friends circled around Richie’s locker only for Richie to wave enthusiastically at him, it puts him back in a pretty fucking foul mood.

Still, he pulls a smile on and walks up to them like nothing is wrong, and like he isn’t painfully, furiously aware of how Richie is draped all over Stan already like it isn’t 7 in the morning.

And he’s wearing a fucking t shirt despite it being barely 40 degrees outside, likely just so he can show off the bite mark on his neck that is still congealed with blood. The sight of it makes Eddie’s nausea worse, but he swallows it down the best he can and counts it as a blessing that Stan had the decency to wear a collared shirt that covers his.

Even though Eddie sort of wishes he didn’t, because he’s curious to see what the mate mark that Richie bit into his skin looks like. If it’s deep; if it’s still bleeding. If he bit hard enough to bruise the skin around it, too.

“Hey, Spagheds, how was your weekend?” Richie asks as he approaches, and despite his efforts to be cheerful, Eddie feels himself scowl.

“I know you’re only asking so you can tell me how _your_ weekend was, so let’s just cut out the middle man.”

“I’m _so_ glad you asked, Edward, my weekend was wonderful!” Richie announces dramatically, and Stan is already embarrassed, based on the way he tucks himself into Richie’s chest and turns his blushing face away from the rest of the students in the hallway.

“Richie, please,” he mumbles softly, but Richie ignores him in favor of petting a heavy hand carelessly through Stan’s neatly combed hair.

“So do you want to hear all of the set-up, or do you want me to cut right to the part when-”

“Really don’t need a play-by-play, Rich; I think I get the gist,” Eddie snips, and guilt punches through him when Stan shoots him a small, thankful glance, because Eddie didn’t say it for his benefit.

“Well, it’s not like you’re ever gonna get to experience it firsthand, so I figured you might want to live vicariously,” Richie says with a wink, and Eddie might believe that he’s overreacting when anger violently zips up his spine, but all of their friends gasp as well, so he figures he’s justified.

“You’re such a fucking asshole, Richie,” Eddie snaps at him, before storming off down the hallway, trying to ignore the angry, hushed whispers of his friends as he leaves.

But, once again, it’s for the best. It’s for the best. It never would have worked out anyway, because Richie is a fucking stupid, insensitive piece of shit alpha anyway, and Stan can fucking have him.

Despite trying to get through the school day with some semblance of control over his raging emotions, Eddie feels on the verge of tears throughout the entirety of his first two periods, and he isn’t even sure why. Richie was a dick, but Richie is a dick to him a lot, and it never gets to him this much.

Maybe it’s because his dreams died in front of his eyes this morning and Richie cruelly danced a fucking jig on their grave.

Or maybe it’s because he really is getting sick. He still can’t shake this annoying nausea he’s had all morning, and his headache is starting to get worse. It’s starting to hurt so bad that it’s making him sweaty.

He’s sure it’s just stress, but he’s also sure that he has a perfectly valid excuse to go to the nurse and ask to be sent home, so he decides to do just that halfway through 3rd period.

He decides to go the long way so that he can avoid walking past the gym just in case Henry and Patrick and them are hanging around the side entrance of the school like they do sometimes. Unfortunately, that means passing through the west wing of the building, so there’s an increased chance of running into Richie since he likes to wander the hallways during his art class. He figures that’s still the better option, though, so he presses on.

Luckily there’s nobody in the hallway upon first glance, so Eddie tries to make his way down the hall as quickly as he can, but then he hears hushed voices coming from one of the stairwells.

He knows that he should ignore it and keep walking, but curiosity gets the best of him, and he slows down once he realizes that he recognizes at least one of the voices. So he hides around the corner, and he keeps listening.

“You’ve been a dick all fucking day,” the voice hisses, and Eddie is absolutely sure that it’s Stan.

“What else is new?”

“Can you stop and be serious for, like, 5 minutes? Jesus Christ, Rich. What is your problem?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Bullshit you don’t. You were so- so _mean_ to Eddie this morning, and now you’re just- you’re-”

“Just having a weird day, I guess.”

“Is this… is this about us?”

“No,” Richie sighs, and Eddie hates that he feels a little disappointed by that response. “I don’t know. I’m just- I just want to go home, I guess, and be alone with you. We should have planned this better and waited.”

 _“’We’?_ Richie, I _told you_ I wanted to wait until next weekend. You’re the one who insisted we do it as soon as possible.”

“I just wanted to get it over with, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t think I’d be so- so-”

 _“’Get it over with’?_ What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Stan asks, and the sharp rise in the volume of his voice nearly scares Eddie off from eavesdropping. But it doesn’t.

“Lower your fucking voice. That isn’t what I meant, and you know that,” Richie replies lowly, and Eddie’s heart rate speeds up at the authority in his tone.

“Well, that’s what you said.”

“I don’t appreciate your fucking attitude right now, and I suggest you fix it before I start getting mad, Stanley.”

“I don’t know why you think you can talk to me like I’m a piece of shit lately, but you better-”

“Because I _can,”_ Richie hisses, and Eddie has to nearly physically stop himself from gasping. Stan still gasps, though. “Because this right here? This means you’re _mine._ You _belong to me,_ and I can do and say whatever the fuck I want to you, and if I decide I don’t want to listen to your fucking bitching anymore, you better shut the fuck up when I tell you to.”

“Richie, stop. You’re- you’re hurting me.”

Eddie can tell Stan is trying not to sound like he’s afraid, which he clearly is. He must be.

“Calm down, you’re so fucking over dramatic.”

“Am I? Because I was right that you were going to leave me with a gigantic fucking bruise down the side of my neck when you bit me as hard as you did.”

“Yeah, I noticed you covered it all up. Why is that, Stanley? Because you sure seemed to love it at the time, considering you came all over yourself as soon as I did it. So are you ashamed of me or something?”

“Obviously not. I just don’t think it’s proper to go around flaunting something that is supposed to be _private_ to the entire school. It’s impolite.”

Richie laughs, but it sounds cruel, and Eddie is starting to think maybe this is always how he behaves toward Stan when nobody is around.

“Well, get used to it. You can’t hide it forever, and eventually everyone is going to know that you’re my bitch the moment they look at you, like they fucking should.”

“Don’t call me that, Richie.”

“Why? You always seem to like being reminded that you’re my little bitch when you’re all fuck-drunk on my knot.”

“Richie, _stop._ We are at _school.”_

“So what? Maybe giving me some pussy will stop me from being such an asshole for the rest of the day. That’s what you asked for, isn’t it? Time to do your part.”

“Richie- _Richie,”_ Stan begs quietly, and Eddie knows he should leave. He knows he should, but he can hear Stan gasping softly now, and noises that he can’t place for certain, but which sound suspiciously like the rustling of clothes, and he just wants to see. He wants to see so badly. So he starts inching closer to the corner to peek. Just a quick peek, and then he’ll leave as quietly as he came, and he’ll pretend he never saw anything at all.

“Turn around, _now.”_

The firm command makes Eddie jump in his sneakers, and panic inflates his head like a balloon that pops abruptly when he realizes that Richie isn’t talking to him.

“Richie, _please.”_

“I can smell your pussy getting wet already, so don’t play fucking coy.”

“Richie you can’t- you can’t knot me, class ends in-”

“I know, I’m not a fucking moron,” Richie’s voice snaps in an agitated whisper, before Eddie can hear the tinkling of his belt buckle. “I’ll just come in your mouth when I’m done.”

“F-Fine, okay. Fine.”

Eddie starts holding his breath, because he’s breathing so heavily that he’s sure one or both of them will hear him if they listen closely enough. He knows this is probably the creepiest thing he’s ever done in his life- even creepier than all the times he’s jerked off thinking about his two closest friends having sex. Actually listening to it feels horribly perverted and- and _wrong,_ and Eddie thinks maybe that’s why his knees feel so weak and he’s starting to sweat so much that he can feel it beading up on his hairline.

And he knows. He knows he should leave.

But then Stan lets out a choked little cry, and Eddie can barely hear the soft, repetitive sound of their skin meeting over the deafening volume of his heartbeat in his ears. But he can’t leave, he _can’t,_ because he needs to see or he might go insane.

“Shut the fuck up, someone is going to fucking hear us.”

“I- Richie, I don’t think we should be doing this,” Stan whispers desperately, but Eddie can hear the pace of Richie’s thrusts pick up anyway as he inches closer to the edge of the steps.

“Shh, sh. I’ll be fast, baby, I promise.”

“But- Richie-”

_“Shut up.”_

Eddie’s legs are trembling so badly that he’s worried he’ll collapse on the ground and give himself away, and he doesn’t think he could run away now, even if he wanted to.

“I’m sorry, alpha.”

Eddie is able to carefully peer around the corner to look underneath the stairs finally, and he regrets it as soon as he does.

Richie has Stan pinned against the wall underneath the stairwell with both hands around his waist, and Stan’s head is turned away from where Eddie is standing, but Eddie can see the purpling splotch of a bruise haloing the bloody circle of teeth marks on his neck where his shirt is now half undone and hanging off of his shoulder.

Richie’s hair shields it from view a moment later as he presumably leans down to kiss Stan’s neck, and it must be sensitive, based on the whining, keening moan that Stan lets out as he does it.

“Maybe this was a bad idea, because I want to come in your little pussy so fucking bad.”

“Richie, you _can’t!”_

“Don’t act so scandalized; I know you’d like that,” Richie argues in a low growl, and Eddie watches enraptured as his fingers curl so tightly around Stan’s waist that he’s sure they’ll leave bruises. “You’d have to be all quiet when the bell rings while everyone is switching classes, praying that nobody comes back here and sees you hanging off of my knot like the little whore you are. Then everyone would really know you’re my little bitch, huh?”

“Richie, _please,_ please don’t,” Stan begs in a choked whisper, and Richie brings one of his hands up to grab onto Stan’s hair and pull his head back before biting over Stan’s healing mate mark.

Stan’s knees must go weak because he stumbles before falling fully against the wall, and Richie follows him without disconnecting their bodies, holding Stan up by the waist as he picks up the pace of his thrusts again, until Eddie is certain someone would be able to hear it if they were standing in the hall.

He wants so badly to look away, he really does, but he feels like he can’t. He feels like he’s going insane watching Richie’s long, careful thrusts, very obviously trying to control himself. Eddie’s thighs are trembling almost as badly as Stan’s are.

His mind is racing to try to memorize every moment of this, like a fucking pervert- like a fucking disgusting pervert, because he can only get off when he thinks about being something he’s not and getting fucked by his best friend’s mate.

“Richie- I- Alpha-”

“Are you gonna come for me, baby? Gonna make a mess for me?”

“Yes, yeah, _yeah,”_ Stan keeps repeating in a desperate, hushed little whisper. _Yes, yes, alpha, I-I’m coming, Richie, please, don’t stop, please-_

Something is wrong. Something is really, really wrong. Eddie feels like he’s going to fucking pass out, he feels like he’s- he’s-

He’s so fucking _hot,_ and he’s-

He can smell something so strong it’s hurting his nose, like chili powder or- or-

God is he- did he piss himself? Is he-

“Fuck, _fuck,_ I- I can’t- Jesus Christ,” Richie growls, but he’s not looking at Stan anymore; he’s looking around like he’s trying to find something, and Eddie feels his world crash down around him when Richie’s nearly crazed eyes fall right onto him, and he feels a horrible, unmistakable trickle of _something_ leak out of his hole before there’s a horribly painful cramping sensation in his abdomen.

Eddie watches Richie’s knot swell as his hips stutter forward on instinct, burrowing deep into Stan’s body before he stops, still pulling Stan’s head back by the hair as he comes with his eyes locked on Eddie, letting out a noise so animalistic that it’s nearly terrifying.

“Richie, you- you said- Richie, you _promised,”_ Stan sobs miserably, and the sound of his voice finally snaps Eddie out of whatever fucking trance he’s in, and he turns on his heel and books it as quickly as he can down the hallway despite how wobbly his legs feel.

He can hear Stan frantically asking _Who the fuck was that? Richie? Who was that?_ Before he turns the corner and beelines for one of the emergency exits down the hall.

He has to get home, he has to get home as quickly as he can.

This can’t be fucking happening. His anxiety-riddled brain doesn’t know whether he should be more horrified that his two closest friends now know that he was watching them fuck like a fucking creep, or that it- it-

It launched him into a heat, which means- which means he’s been an omega this whole time, after all.

He starts crying while he’s still booking it for the woods behind the school, which makes it difficult to breathe, and he pauses at the tree line to catch his breath, trying desperately to get his bearings.

But he’s so far from home, and- and he feels so fucking weak in the legs, and he just wants to be at home, and climb into his closet and stay there forever and hide.

He can feel how damp the back of his jeans are already, and he starts panicking. He could go back to the school and call his mom and beg her to come get him, but then he’s risking everyone at school seeing what’s happened to him. Plus, he’ll have to deal with listening to how disappointed and upset she is, and after the day he’s had, that’s the last thing he wants right now.

He could cut through the woods to get to his house, but it will take longer. Still, it’s safer and less horrifying than walking on the main road would be, so he starts trudging in the direction of his house, moving as quickly as he can through the trees.

He’s running as quickly as he can, but he keeps tripping over tree branches because his feet are refusing to cooperate with him. But he can’t slow down, because he needs to get home. He needs to get home, where he can be safe and alone in his bed and deal with this by himself. So he can think about it, because if he thinks about it now, he’s going to have a panic attack.

The toe of his sneaker catches a tree root and sends him flying to the forest floor, and as he’s lying there and trying to find the breath that’s been knocked out of his lungs, he decides to let himself throw a mini pity party, because he thinks he’s earned that much.

So he lets out a despaired, pained wail that bounces off of the trees surrounding him, but he regrets it nearly immediately when he hears something rustling the dead leaves nearby.

He whips his head in the direction of the sound, but he doesn’t see anything, which makes his anxiety worse. But it’s the middle of the day, so- so it probably isn’t a coyote or a lynx. But it could be a bear, or a moose, or-

He hears it again, and his survival instincts kick in much more easily than they likely should in this circumstance, but Eddie figures that’s probably because this is the most vulnerable he’s ever felt in his life.

He gets to his feet as quickly as possible and hauls off in the direction of his house once more, and he tries to tell himself that he’s paranoid, and that there was nothing there. There couldn’t have been, and if there was, it isn’t chasing after him, anyway.

He tells himself that the faster he runs, the quicker he can get home, and he pushes through the burning ache in his lungs and in his legs for as long as he can until he feels his heart trying to rock right out of his chest, and he has to stop for a breath.

But now, he’s really in the middle of the forest, and he can’t even see the road anymore. He still knows what general direction he’s meant to be heading in, but- but he doesn’t know how close he is to a road, or people in general, and that’s a terrifying thought.

But he doesn’t see any immediate threats, so he figures it’s okay to stop here. Just for a moment so he can catch his breath, and then he’ll start running again.

He picked a bad place to stop, though, because he can’t see very far in any direction- it’s rocky and hilly in this part of the woods. He walks a bit further until he can see a steep drop in the forest floor, down to the bank of the river.

Which is good, that’s good. The river is good, because that means he can find his way to the barrens, and then he knows exactly how to get home from there. So this is good.

He’s so sweaty and sticky despite how cold it is outside, and he worries for a moment that he might get sick. His skin is clammy and damp all over, and the nip of the autumn wind is causing his sweat to form a cold, uncomfortable layer all over his body. He just wants to be home.

The tears come back as he slowly makes his way down to the riverbank, being careful not to trip over any tree branches or tree roots and send himself ass over teakettle down into the water. That’s the last thing he needs right now.

Once he makes it to the water, he starts down in the direction that he thinks the barrens are in, and he feels a bit better now. More level-headed. He’s somewhere familiar now, which makes him feel significantly less vulnerable, despite the weakness in his bones and the steadily growing wet patch on the back of his jeans.

All of that relief is sapped right out of him when he turns a bend and sees someone else along the riverbank about 50 yards away.

He can’t tell at first who it is, just that they’re turned away, hunched over on the ground doing- doing _something._ And he knows he should try to hide because whoever it is hasn’t noticed him yet, but he gets distracted watching as they pick something up in their hands, and then they turn slightly to their left, and Eddie realizes that it’s Patrick Hockstetter.

And that alone should be enough to send him booking it as quickly as possible in the opposite direction, but he can’t stop watching, because-

Because he has a wriggling, live fish in his hands. It looks like it might be a small mouth bass, or a trout; Eddie can’t quite tell from this far away. The fish wriggles itself down onto the ground and Patrick holds it still with one hand, and Eddie watches in horror as he uses his other hand to pull a knife out of his pocket and flick it open.

He doesn’t hesitate before slicing the fish down the middle, right along its belly, and Eddie can see the pink meat of its insides as it tries again to wriggle out of Patrick’s grip, because it’s still alive.

It’s still alive, and clearly suffering, and Eddie feels like he’s going to vomit all over again. The nausea sharply worsens when Patrick uses his hands to open up the wound, digging his fingers into the guts of the fish to pry it open like a book, all while its struggles get weaker and weaker.

Eddie can see its guts dirtying Patrick’s fingers as he does this, and Eddie wonders if he’s looking for something, because he’s digging around inside of the fish like there’s something inside of it that Patrick wants to find. Like he’s searching for something that he can only find in the suffering, tortured body of a creature smaller and weaker than himself, and the thought makes Eddie gag violently, which he has to cover his mouth to silence.

Eventually the fish stops moving, and Patrick looks disinterested just as quickly. He stands up and kicks the mangled body of the fish back into the river before bending down to clean off his hands and his knife in the freezing water, and just as Eddie’s right mind comes back to him and he turns to quietly make his way back around the bend and out of Patrick’s line of sight, a violent gust of wind whips down the riverbank.

He stumbles gracelessly and falls to the ground, which he’s sure Patrick hears. But more so, he’s sure that Patrick can smell him now, based on how quickly his head snaps over in Eddie’s direction before he takes off running right at him.

Eddie cries out in panic and scrambles to pick himself up off of the ground, but he trips again before he can get himself standing, and his ears start ringing when he turns his head and realizes how quickly Patrick is closing the gap between them, with his knife still clutched in his fist.

He lets out a noise that he’s sure sounds more animal than human, because that’s what he feels like right now- he feels like an animal desperately running for his life, knowing that it’ll be futile in the end.

Still, he whips around the bend and tries to throw Patrick off his trail by heading for a particularly dense patch of trees. He can’t keep running, even though he knows he should. But his legs are so weak that he’s on the verge of collapsing, and his cramps are so bad now that he can barely stand up straight, and his only option is to hide.

He sees a hollow near the base of a large tree nearby, and he tries his best to tuck himself inside of it, making himself as small as he can. He hears Patrick’s heavy footsteps crunching leaves and cracking twigs as he gets closer, and Eddie freezes still as they slow down somewhere nearby, covering his mouth and nose with his sweater to quiet his labored breathing the best he can.

“Come on, Kaspbrak. You know there’s no point in hiding from me. I’ll find where you are eventually,” Patrick’s unnervingly calm voice states from somewhere to Eddie’s left, and he feels tears start to burn at his eyes again. “I won’t hurt you if you come out, sweetheart. I promise.”

Eddie remains as still as he can, with his eyes held open as wide as they’ll go to try and catch a glimpse of movement as Patrick’s footsteps start up again, this time very, very slowly and deliberately.

“I don’t want to hurt you, baby. Don’t make me hurt you.”

Eddie whips his head in the direction of a loud, cracking thud, and he watches as a sizable rock splinters into the bark of a nearby tree. He manages not to scream, but just barely.

“You must be scared, huh? I can help, you know. I can make the hurt go away,” Patrick coos softly, but it sounds so awful and _wrong_ and hollow, and all it does is make Eddie’s skin crawl worse than it already is.

He jumps slightly despite trying his best to stay statuesque when another loud crack sounds, though this time, it’s right against the tree under which Eddie is hiding.

It seems that Patrick has swung a large, dead branch into the trunk, sending splinters of wood in every direction as it explodes against the bark of the tree.

Still, Eddie stays as still as he can, hoping that Patrick will give up on trying to scare him out of hiding. That he’ll get bored, and give up, and go away.

But Eddie knows that won’t happen. He knows that wouldn’t happen even if he weren’t in heat, and if he couldn’t already smell the dizzying spice of Patrick’s arousal.

The fact that it’s so strong means he must be close, he’s probably-

“I told you it was stupid to hide from me, bitch,” Patrick starts to say softly, but it devolves into a growl halfway through as one of his hands shoots out to reach for Eddie’s hair.

Eddie manages to duck away with a clipped, desperate scream, but before he can untangle his legs and propel himself out of his hiding spot, Patrick is able to get a grip on his sweater.

He pulls the neckline so tight that it chokes him, tugging Eddie backwards until he can wrap his arms around Eddie’s waist, digging his bony elbows into Eddie’s ribs and stomach as he kneels behind him on the ground, before bringing his knife up against Eddie’s throat.

“Dumbass. You’re fucking retarded, Kaspbrak. Why bother pissing me off first?” Patrick asks, like he knew it was inevitable that he’d catch Eddie, and Eddie supposes that’s fair, because he knew it, too.

“Patrick, please, _please-”_ Eddie starts begging, but cuts himself off with another desperate, animalistic little scream when Patrick presses the blade of the knife harder against his neck.

“If you scream one more fucking time, I’ll cut your fucking throat open and _leave you here to die,”_ Patrick hisses into his ear, and Eddie goes limp in his arms with a pathetic little sob. “And no one would give a fuck, because you’re a stupid little bitch who went running off into the woods by yourself.”

As much as Eddie would like to argue that Patrick is wrong, he can’t. Because he’s sure that if he were found dead, everyone would see his name and face on the news and hear that he died because he ran off into the woods by himself while he was in heat, and they’d all think that he deserved it, too. Because he should have known better.

“Please, please don’t do this to me, Patrick, _please.”_

“What did you think was going to happen, princess? What did you expect?” he laughs cruelly into Eddie’s ear, and Eddie’s stomach churns painfully at the smell of stale cigarettes and unbrushed teeth on his breath. “You’re all the fucking same. You play the fucking victim and act like this isn’t what you fucking wanted to happen, but it is- I _know_ it is. Because you all just want to be fucking ruined like the little whores you are, you just don’t want to admit it.”

He shoves Eddie down onto the forest floor face first, and Eddie bites his tongue in his effort not to scream. He knows better than to try to get away again, so he doesn’t. In fact, he stays as still as he can; maybe that way, Patrick won’t hurt him as badly as he might if he struggles, at least.

“And that’s why you ran off into the woods with your pussy all wet, because you wanted someone to fuck you into the dirt like the little animal you are.”

“That’s not- that’s not true, I just- I was scared, and I didn’t know what else to do,” Eddie sobs, but he’s not sure why he’s bothering to explain, anyway. He knows it won’t matter. “I just want to go home, Patrick; please let me go- let me go home.”

Eddie watches in confused terror as Patrick just stares at him for a moment before smiling, exposing each one of his jagged teeth. “Oh, I get it. I know exactly what you’re doing,” he says, and Eddie’s panic spikes again, because he has no idea what conclusion Patrick could possibly have drawn. “You’re all pissy because Tozier marked his bitch this weekend, aren’t you?”

“W-What?”

“Yeah, I get it. I know you’re jealous of Uris; I can tell. Sucks that you’re a late bloomer, huh? If not, then maybe Tozier could have been the one to pop your cherry like you wanted,” he continues, moving forward to straddle Eddie’s waist and hold the knife against his neck again, before continuing on just as casually. “He would have. I think he could always tell you were supposed to be an omega, too.”

Eddie isn’t sure if he should be more terrified at the prospect of Patrick paying much, much closer attention to him and his friends than he thought he did, or- or the suggestion that Richie might have felt the same way about Eddie, but he gave up because Eddie never presented, after all.

Eddie is snapped out of his despaired thoughts when Patrick brings his knife to the collar of Eddie’s sweater, pulling it down to run the tip against Eddie’s collarbones, looking down at him almost reverently. “But now he has his mate, and you have no one. So you need someone to fill up that empty, aching little hole inside, don’t you?”

Patrick’s eyes shine mirthfully as he laughs at his own joke, and Eddie’s panic returns all at once as he tries to struggle out from underneath him, desperately reaching for the knife in his hand with another screech.

He manages to land a decent punch to Patrick’s chin, but Patrick’s free hand shoots down to his neck just as quickly, squeezing around his throat so hard that Eddie is afraid something might snap.

“No, no, no. That isn’t how this is going to go,” Patrick tuts, seemingly unaffected by Eddie’s desperate attempts to claw his iron grip off of his throat. “You’re a little cunt who needs to be put in his place. Maybe Tozier wouldn’t have wanted you, after all; _his_ bitch does what he tells it to.”

The world is starting to go fuzzy, and Eddie figures that might be better than going through this. Through- through what Patrick is going to do to him. Maybe it’ll be more bearable if he’s unconscious, at least.

But Patrick lets him breathe again, and the world comes back into focus with terrifying clarity as Eddie sucks in air before choking on it as it makes its way back out and in again.

“I think you need some obedience training,” he continues as Eddie struggles to get his wheezing under control. “Lesson one: you’re going to take all of your clothes off for me without doing something fucking stupid and making me hurt you again.”

Eddie holds in a panicked scream as Patrick presses the dull side of the blade to his temple, before petting it gently down the side of his face to press the tip into Eddie’s cheek, drawing a dot of blood. “If you can do that for me, then I’ll be nice and fuck your little pussy rather than making a new hole in your face to fuck instead.”

“Y-Yes, yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Y-Yes I can do that for you,” Eddie manages to force out in a panicked gasp, before adding, “I’ll be good, just- please don’t hurt me, please, alpha.”

Patrick smiles one of his slimy smiles again, leaning down to press a dry kiss to Eddie’s cheek before climbing off of him to kneel on the ground. “Good girl, you’re learning so fast.”

Eddie sits up slowly, struggling to pull himself up with his shaking arms as he keeps his gaze locked onto Patrick, because he doesn’t trust him not to come at him with the knife again, no matter what he said.

Eddie’s fingers are so cold and stiff that it takes him a few clumsy tries to undo the button on his jeans and pull down his fly. He manages, though, and kicks his shoes off before slowly sliding his pants down his legs.

“S-Socks too?”

“Everything.”

Patrick stares at his legs as more and more of his skin is exposed and starts to goose up in the chilly air, and Eddie doesn’t feel reassured by the violent look in his eyes as he puts the blade of his knife between his teeth to undo his own jeans and pull them down to his knees.

Eddie snaps his eyes shut and turns away, heaving in anxious breaths as the reality of his situation fully sinks in, and he starts to feel cornered despite the open forest surrounding them for miles.

“Look at me,” Patrick snaps at him, and Eddie cracks his eyes open, letting out another panicked gasp when he sees Patrick reaching into his boxers while pointing the knife at Eddie again with his other hand. “And hurry the fuck up.”

Eddie rushes to pull his sweater over his head and hesitates before pulling his boxers down, too, but the way Patrick’s eyes darken in the millisecond-long pause is enough to scare him into complying.

As soon as he’s naked, Patrick pushes him back down onto the ground, and Eddie lets out a pained grunt as his back makes contact with an exposed tree root. He manages to stay still until Patrick starts coming closer, at which point he scrambles away on instinct, dragging his hands along the forest floor to scoot away.

Patrick grabs him by the ankle and tugs him closer again, and Eddie cries out in pain as his back drags over the tree root, then he starts sobbing in panic all over again when Patrick lifts his ankle up up up until it’s above his head, and Patrick is bending him in half painfully to pin his foot to the ground.

His other leg is mostly useless in this position, and all he can really do is brace himself with his hands to try to take some of the pressure off of his lungs so that he can breathe.

“You’re a bad little listener,” Patrick tuts as he looks Eddie over, while Eddie is as exposed and vulnerable and terrified as he’s ever been in his life.

“I’m s-sorry, alpha, I’m just- just scared,” Eddie admits, because maybe there’s a human in there somewhere, behind Patrick’s dead eyes. “It’s my first heat, and I’m s-scared.”

Patrick gives him a mocking little pout, and Eddie knows that trying to play to his morality is useless. He should have known, because he’s never seen evidence that Patrick has any morality at all.

“Poor little thing, I’m sure it must be scary. But you should be a lot more afraid of what I’ll do to you if you _don’t_ cooperate with me than if you do.”

Eddie just nods, because he doesn’t know what else to say, since saying things feels useless, anyway. So he nods and nods and nods.

“Gonna be a good little girl and do what I fucking tell you to?”

“Yes, yes, I promise.”

Patrick digs the tip of his knife into the meat of Eddie’s thigh, and Eddie screams again, trying to reach out to stop him the best he can in this position.

“Alpha! I’m sorry, I promise I’ll do what you want me to, alpha,” Eddie corrects desperately, and Patrick smiles down at him in what Eddie thinks might be his version of fondness.

“Better,” he says softly, before trailing his knife further down Eddie’s thigh, pressing down just hard enough for Eddie to feel a sting. But then he keeps going, and Eddie barely stops himself from flinching when Patrick brings the tip of the knife over the curve of his ass.

Eddie lets out a hysterical sound somewhere between a scream and a laugh when the cold metal slips down between his cheeks to slide around in the mess of slick there.

Patrick is being deceivingly gentle with the knife considering the death grip he has on Eddie’s leg, but Eddie has to use every ounce of his willpower not to flinch or recoil or move at all, in fear of sending the knife plunging into him with his own struggling.

“You’re a fucking mess,” he says with a cruel little laugh, teasing around Eddie’s hole with the tip of the blade. “You need it bad, huh? I wonder how bad.”

Eddie wants to say that he doesn’t, he doesn’t want this at all, and that any physical signs of arousal he might be displaying are purely out of his control because of this fucking heat that he regrets ever wishing for.

But he has a feeling that that’s not the answer Patrick wants, and then he’s sure of it when Patrick applies the tiniest amount of pressure and flashes an annoyed glance up at Eddie, and Eddie realizes that Patrick wants him to beg. Not for mercy, this time.

“P-Please, alpha, please, I- I need you,” Eddie manages to choke out, and it’s not great, but it’s the best he can do.

“Tell me what you need. Tell me how bad you want it,” Patrick instructs, and Eddie wants to just scream, scream at him to just fucking do it, and stop playing games with him, because he can’t fucking take this, and he’d rather Patrick have just fucked him and left him in the woods already.

But instead, he takes a shaky breath before saying what he thinks will get him out of this situation without serious bodily injuries, which is his main priority right now.

“I- I want- I need your knot, alpha, please. Please, I want you to make me feel better, alpha; it hurts,” Eddie sniffles pathetically, and that must be good enough, based on the rumbling growl that Patrick lets out in response.

“You want me to make all the hurt go away?”

“Please, please, yes, alpha, please.”

Patrick lets out a shaky breath, and Eddie is nearly relieved when he moves the knife, until he realizes that Patrick is bringing it up toward his crotch.

“I don’t know how you ever fucking thought you were a beta. You look more like a girl than most of the chick bitches in our class.”

Eddie isn’t sure if he’s supposed to respond, so he doesn’t, because Patrick is running the blade up the length of his cock now, and he just wants to do whatever will make Patrick put the knife away.

“I wish you didn’t have this,” he says softly, almost like Eddie isn’t even meant to hear it, before pressing the tip of the knife underneath the head of Eddie’s cock.

“Please, alpha, please d-d-don’t, please, I’m sorry,” Eddie is hysterical at this point, and nearly cries in relief when Patrick finally pulls the knife away, after looking thoughtfully at Eddie’s genitals for much too long.

“Relax. I’d rather you have a cock between your legs than be a mutilated freak,” Patrick assures, and Eddie thinks he’s trying to be comforting. “For now, at least.”

He finally, finally pulls the knife from between Eddie’s legs, gazing at the shine of Eddie’s slick on the blade before running his tongue across the sharp edge to lick it off.

Eddie watches in apprehension as he flicks his tongue back out to lick the other side, noticing that there is blood in his mouth now, as well.

“Like honey,” he comments, and Eddie isn’t sure if he’s meant to say thank you or not. It doesn’t matter, though, because Patrick finally, finally lets go of this leg to grab his jaw instead, leaning down to press his tongue into Eddie’s mouth, forcing his blood and Eddie’s own slick with it.

Eddie tries to turn away, but Patrick’s grip is too tight, and he pulls Eddie’s mouth open wider, until he’s kissing him so deeply that it’s making Eddie gag. Or that could be the taste of his blood and his breath and cigarette smoke, Eddie isn’t sure.

Eddie stops struggling and lets Patrick lick into his mouth until he decides he’s content and pulls away, wiping blood and spit off of his chin with the back of his hand. He looks crazed, and Eddie is sure he is. They learned in sex ed that omega heat pheromones can make alphas black out entirely, which is why a lot of rape and forced bonding cases get dismissed in court, because most alphas argue that they weren’t capable of stopping themselves. Eddie isn’t sure exactly how that works, though, because he only got beta sex ed.

Patrick finally, finally, _finally_ stabs the knife into the ground next to where Eddie is lying, and Eddie nearly cries out in relief.

“Turn around,” he orders urgently, and Eddie scrambles to obey, kneeling down in the leaves.

Patrick immediately presses up against him, and Eddie turns his head back to watch Patrick pull his cock out of his boxers, and he lets out another panicked yelp before flinching away again.

Patrick grabs him by the hair and slams his face into the cold ground, leaning down to growl into his ear.

“Your cunt better be worth all of the fucking effort, or I might just kill you, anyway,” he threatens, and Eddie can feel him start to press his cock between Eddie’s legs, sliding the tip through his slick and against his hole.

Eddie doesn’t protest because he knows that’s bad; he knows that would be bad, but he can’t stop his hips from trying to turn away, because there’s no more stalling, and no more chances for him to get away.

Patrick pushes down so hard on his head that Eddie is afraid his skull is going to crack into pieces. He lets out a short little scream as the pressure builds, and Patrick uses his free hand to punch Eddie in the gut, hard enough to knock the wind out of him all over again before firmly grasping the back of his neck.

 _“Present, bitch,”_ Patrick nearly yells at him, and Eddie’s perception of the world around him starts to go melty and slippery and wobbly.

He goes limp again, allowing his chest to fall against the forest floor which rubs painfully against his nipples. He arches his back up, and Patrick kicks his legs open wider with his knee, and Eddie doesn’t want to fight anymore.

Because fighting is pointless. Fighting is bad. Fighting makes alpha mad, and then alpha hurts him. So if he’s good, then alpha will be nice, like he said. He’ll be nice and make Eddie feel better, and make the hurt go away.

Because that’s all Eddie feels right now, is hurt. He hurts all over. Everything hurts, and he just wants it to stop.

“Please,” he hears himself beg softly, “please, alpha, please.”

“I don’t think you deserve it anymore. You’ve been a little faggot cunt this whole time.”

“No!” Eddie cries out desperately, feeling his tears sting his cheeks before they roll into the dead leaves underneath his head. “No, please, I’m- I’m sorry, alpha. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything else, and Eddie thinks he really will stab Eddie and leave him here, alone and cold and naked in the middle of the woods.

But then he starts pressing into Eddie’s hole again, and the overwhelming sense of relief that he feels as Patrick shoves into him is confusing and- and _wrong,_ and he knows that, and some part of Eddie’s brain is screaming at him to fight back again, for fuck’s sake, _get away from him._

But that’s the part of Eddie that got him in trouble with alpha, so he locks it away, and he pushes back into the warmth of Patrick’s body.

And it hurts- it hurts _so bad_. It’s overwhelming and painful, and Eddie can feel his hole struggling to open up and let Patrick inside, despite how wet he is between his legs. His thighs are shaking so badly that he’s worried he’s going to fall over, and alpha must be able to tell, because he hooks his arm around Eddie’s waist to hold him up by the hips before he starts thrusting.

And even though it hurts, every cell of Eddie’s body is trying to pull in more of this feeling, to feel _full;_ to ease the ache so deep and so desperate inside of him that he’s terrified alpha won’t be able to reach it.

He pulls Eddie back onto his cock with a grunt, then does it again, and again, and then he finally presses in all the way, and Eddie’s whole body shudders as he grinds his cock in deeper, as deep as it can go.

“Your cunt is so fucking tight,” he curses, and Eddie just thanks him, and nods, and agrees, and encourages him, and says whatever he thinks will get alpha to keep going, because he’s so close, he’s so _close_ to scratching that itch that Eddie has in the core of him, and he’s afraid he’ll really lose his mind if he doesn’t get relief.

“Please, fuck me, please, alpha, I need your knot, please,” Eddie starts babbling, and Patrick pulls back until Eddie’s body is desperately clenching around the head of his cock to keep it inside before thrusting back in again. And he does it over, and over, and over- harder and faster and deeper, until Eddie is nearly yowling against the dead leaves under his face.

It feels good- it feels so good, and Eddie starts throwing his hips back into alpha’s to feel the growing sparks of relief every time his cock thrusts so deep inside of Eddie’s body that his stomach hurts.

“Jesus fucking Christ, look at you,” Patrick huffs out an amused laugh. “I knew you were fucking desperate for it. That’s why I told you to stop fucking fighting me, you stupid little bitch.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie tells him sincerely, gasping when Patrick grabs his hips with both hands.

And it hurts- it hurts _bad,_ and he can feel alpha’s fingernails breaking his skin because he’s holding so tight, but then he shifts forward and starts thrusting again, deeper this time, pulling Eddie’s hips back to meet each one. And finally, _finally,_ he’s hitting the spot Eddie needs him to most, and Eddie starts screaming again.

“There! _There,_ alpha, please, there, please don’t stop, _please,_ ” he’s begging, and then he remembers what Stan sounded like when Richie was fucking him in the hallway, and he wonders if it always feels so good- if it always feels like you’re going to die without it.

“I won’t, princess,” alpha coos at him, “as long as you promise you’ll be a good girl and you won’t try to run away from Daddy ever again.”

“Never, never again.”

“Good. Because if you do, then I really will kill you, and I don’t want to do that, princess. Especially once you’re all full of my pups,” he says softly, and then Bad Eddie starts screaming again- screaming _to get away, don’t let him knot you, because_ \- because-

“I’ll never try to run away, never again,” Eddie cries desperately, “I promise, alpha, I promise I won’t run away from you.”

_Something is wrong! Get away! Run the fuck away!_

But it doesn’t matter, because Eddie can feel alpha’s knot swelling, and his body starts getting ready for it, pulling him in in in- deeper, as deep as he can. Every muscle in his body feels tight as his hole locks down onto the one thing it needs- the one thing it’s wanted for so, so long.

He can feel the rhythmic pulse of alpha’s cock inside of him as he comes, and Eddie starts to feel high, like he’s made of cotton candy and he’ll float away in the wind. It’s the best feeling he’s ever felt in his life, and he wants it to last forever and ever and ever.

He wants to come too, but alpha said he won’t touch Eddie’s cock, so Eddie wiggles his hips back to just get _something,_ something, just a little more, just-

But then he grabs Eddie’s hair and pulls his head back, forcing Eddie to sit up until he’s in alpha’s lap, and then he bites.

And it hurts so, so bad, and Eddie screams again, so loud that his throat hurts. He starts squirming, and alpha wraps his arms around Eddie’s arms and shoulders to keep him still, before biting down harder, until Eddie can feel warm, sticky blood start to trickle down his chest, and then Eddie comes, clenching down harder on alpha’s knot, which makes him come again, too.

He doesn’t stop, though, and he keeps biting harder and harder, and Eddie doesn’t feel good anymore. He feels bad, and scared, and he just wants it to stop now; he doesn’t like it anymore.

“I- please, please, Patrick,” he begs, then he starts breathing faster, which turns into hyperventilating as the fog around his brain starts to clear out. “Patrick! Patrick, _stop!_ Please, please stop!”

And he finally does, but Eddie doesn’t feel relieved once he unlocks his jaw from around Eddie’s neck. He just feels more panicked, watching as his blood continues streaming down his chest and to his stomach, trickling down between his legs where Patrick is still locked inside of him.

He starts wailing in panic, and Patrick bites him again, on the shoulder this time, and Eddie does his best to quiet down before he draws blood again.

“You’re so fucking loud. Someone is going to think I really did murder you out here,” Patrick laughs into his ear, like this is funny. Like anything about this is worthy of a laugh.

“I didn’t think your cunt would be so fucking tight. Hope it stays that way,” he continues, before rubbing Eddie’s belly almost affectionately. “I heard that having pups stretches your pussy out, but they can sew it back up.”

Eddie thinks he must have hit a point where he’s incapable of panicking anymore, because his body is numb, and he doesn’t feel afraid anymore. He feels like he’s watching this happen to somebody else- like his body doesn’t really belong to him, and he’s watching some other poor omega realize that his life might be ruined forever.

“Next time, we can show my friends what a good little girl you are for me. Or, I guess, _our_ friends, since they’re your pack now, too.”

Eddie starts crying again, but it’s quiet this time, and he’s not sure why he’s crying, anyway. He doesn’t feel anything right now. It’s just static between his ears.

“Shh; don’t cry, princess. I know you’ll miss your faggy little friends, but they don’t give a shit about you, anyway. Especially Tozier and Uris. They stopped giving a shit about you years ago. So it’s better off this way, isn’t it, baby?”

Another gust of wind whips by, and Eddie feels it rustle his hair, but he doesn’t feel the same chill anymore. He wonders if it’s stolen all of his words as well and carried them off somewhere else, because he still can’t find them.

So he just nods his head instead.

**Author's Note:**

> oof amirite boys :(


End file.
